The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-23


petitors, as well as in the work of schol-
arship.
In my judgment, the work of an in
structor in English composition is, in
deed, limited in range, but is very i'm
portant within its range. His Office is
not so much to provide his pupils with
matters for thought, or with machinery
for thinking, as to show them how to
communicate their thoughts to others
in the clearest, strongest, and most eff
fective manner. To this end he should
strive, in the first place, to stimulate
their minds, so that they may put forth
their full powers when they write, and
put them forth naturally and with the
force of their individuality and, in the
second place, he should, so far as in
him lies, remove the distractions which
ignorance, half-knowledge, bad train
ing, mannerism, self consciousness, i'm
itation of poor models, the thousand
and one forces that fight against good
English, place between the thought and
its free and natural expression.
Over some of these obstacles stu
dents mental energy will, if reused to
its full power, carry him by its own
momentum for, as every one knows,
writer is less likely to make egregi-
Gus errors in spelling or punctuation,
for instance, if he be so absorbed in the
matter of what he is writing as to give
no conscious attention to forms of
words or construction of sentences.
The more firmly, moreover, his mind
grasps the subject in hand, and the
more rapid the movement of his train
of thought, the more likely he is to hit
upon the best words and the best ar
rangement of words.
If teacher, then, is able to interest
his pupils in what they are writing so
fully that they put their best selves
into their work with the pen, he will
succeed not only in giving to it contin-
uity and individuality not otherwise to
be attained, but also in diminishing the
number of errors and defects. Those
which remain should be dealt with
firmly but considerably. The student
should be made to feel that they are re-
moved in order that the free flow of his
thought may be unimpeded, and that
they are of no account as compared with
lack of life and of unity in the compo-
sition as a whole.
Every teacher will decide fol himself
how to stimulate his pupils. The
means are as various as the conditions
of life and the idiosyncrasies of human
nature. What is one mans meat is
another mans poison. What is sue
cessful with small class will fail with
a large one. In all cases and under all
conditions, the one thing needful is
that the teacher should have the power
to awaken interest and inspire enthusi-
asm. If he does not throw himself into
his work, the minds Of his pupils will
be cold and sluggish. They must catch
fire from him.
Under the most favorable conditions
the results of English composition as
practised in college are, it must be
confessed, discouraging. The shadow
of generations of perfunctory writers
seems to rest upon the paper, and only
here and there is it broken by ray OF
light from the present. know no Ian.
guage ancient or modern, civilized OF
savage-so insufficient for the purposes
of language, so dreary and inexpensive
as theme-l language in the mass. How
two or three hundred young men, who
seem to be really alive as they appear
in the flesh, can have kept themselves
entirely out of their writing, it is i'm
possible to understandable for
the instructor who has read these pro-
auctions by the thousand, or for the
graduate who looks at his own compost
tions ten years after leaving college.
Perhaps the most potent cause of this
deplorable state of things has been the
practice of forcing young men to write
on topics of which they know nothing
and care to know nothing-topics,
moreover, that present no salient point
for their minds to take hold of. An
improvement-fo improvement there
is-has been noticed since students
have been given greater freedom in
the choice of subjects, have been en-
couraged to choose a topic which has
already engaged their attention for its
own sake, and have been told to limit
and define the topic they choose so as
to keep themselves strictly to one line
of thought-whether in defending or
attacking proposition clearly stated,
or in arranging facts in accordance with
some principle of method, or in telling
a story or describing a scene in cohe-
rent and vivid manner.-Prot. A. s.
Hill, In Scribner'S Magazine for april
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